B&T Passes from One Private Equity Group to Another Willis Stein announced that they are selling Baker & Taylor to yet another private equity group, Castle Harlan, for $455 million. Castle Harlan vice chairman Gary Appel says in the announcement, “The experienced management team led by Richard Willis, president and chief executive officer, that has directed its growth will continue to manage the business as our partners, and senior management will continue to retain an ownership stake in the company.” When Willis Stein bought the company just under three years ago, they paid $255 million, and B&T was bringing in […]

Reed Gives In — And Screws Frankfurt? LBF to Earl’s Court Just days after Reed Exhibitions UK chief Alastair Gornall explained why Earl’s Court was a bad venue for a book fair and urged the trade to trot out to Excel one more time, the organizers of the London Book Fair have done a complete turnaround — and apparently have screwed the folks at the Frankfurt Book Fair who inspired the change in the first place. The established show has signed a “long-term management agreement” to run a book fair on the exact same dates chosen by FBF, April 16 […]

Cody’s Original Store to Close Citing “ruinous losses” of over $1 million, owner Andy Ross has announced the closing of Cody’s Books’ well-known store on Telegraph Avenue, near the University of California at Berkeley. Ross says the store has run in the red for the past 15 years. Cody’s smaller outlet in Berkeley and their large store in downtown San Francisco will remain open. SF Chron New Fair in London: No Longer Priceless As promised in our report from Monday, FBF officials have launched a starting web site for their Book Fair in London, which lists basic prices (and advance […]

US Output Actually Declines Just as we had resigned ourselves to ever-growing title pollution, Bowker has announced that the number of new books published last year actually fell, to an estimated 172,000 “titles and editions.” While down 18,000 from the total for 2004, and the first annual decrease since 1999, it’s still the second-highest number ever in the US.   Output declined 4.7 percent at the 12 largest houses, to 23,017 editions, as university presses grew just under 2 percent, to 14,746 editions. (Unlike last year, Bowker has not yet calculated the title output of the largest POD publishers, which […]

Random Buys Sports Publisher Random House has purchased Chicago-based sports book publisher Triumph Books, on undisclosed terms. Founder and CEO Mitch Rogatz will continue to run the unit and the full staff will remain in place in Chicago, as Triumph becomes an imprint within the RH Publishing Group. Rogatz will report to svp and executive director for business operations and new business development Bill Takes. Group head Gina Centrello notes in the announcement: “We have long wanted to extend our publishing program more deeply into the area of sports, and Triumph’s expertise and reputation in this area makes them the […]

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